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I am making mainteneence payments in accordance with CSA guidelines of 20% net for my two children 6 and 8 yrs old. This started in October when the divorce was finalised. However i became a father again at the same time with my new partner and need to adjust payments to take into account my new child. When can i do this? I think my divorce solicitor said not until after one year of the court agreement. Is this correct?
many thanks.
Your solicitor is correct that the court order holds for 12 months, after which you can ask the CSA to take your case (not sure what the new rules are on this). The reduction won't be massive under the existing rules - you reduce the payments by 15%, so you will be paying 17% of takehome instead of 20%.
In theory, you could probably go back to the court to get the order varied in line with the CSA rules, but realistically, how much is that 3% difference worth over the next year - factor in any legal costs and time, and you'd probably lose more by trying to get it changed.
Thank you for the response and what you say both makes sense and clarifies things for me.
best
DB
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. I'm William, the Child Maintenance Options Consultant. Once an agreement has been converted into a Consent Order then the paying parent is legally responsible to pay the amount the court has endorsed. However, the court does not monitor or collect payments so the receiving parent will have to monitor payments and get legal advice around non-payment unless they are happy to accept reduced/no fees.
A Consent Order can be adjusted but to do this either parent will need to get further legal advice then, most commonly, go back to the court, set out the application on a standard form and pay a fee to the court. The court will then consider any change to the original Consent Order.
If parents have a Consent Order and then decide they would prefer to use the CSA they are not legally able to change over unless the Consent Order has been in place for at least 12 months. After 12 months either party can then apply to the CSA and the Consent Order will no longer be valid.
We have a web application that you may find useful, it offers help and support to separating families. The link is:
http://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation
For more information about family-based arrangements and access to useful tools and forms online you can visit www.cmoptions.org, or if you'd prefer a confidential chat you could call the Child Maintenance Options team on 0800 988 0988 (free from a landline).
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